Girls’ water polo: Year ends with losses but also hope

The girls’ water polo season wound down at the SCVAL finals from Nov. 2-7. The Falcons lost their first game to Palo Alto 12-2. The next resulted in a 4-3 loss to Mountain View, a disappointment since they had previously beaten the team twice.

“[Mountain View] came out ready to win and we have been down all season because on the amount of times we lost,” said coach Courtney Crase. “But despite the loss we really came together as a group.”

Their third game of the tournament was against Homestead. Confidence was down and Homestead played what Falcon players described as a dirty game, resulting in a 13-3 loss for the Falcons.

According to Crase, despite their losses the girls still improved toward the end of the season, playing all four quarters strong.

“We had a really rough season, but we ended high spirited and worked well as a team together,” said Crase. “Every game we played to the end capturing our motto of ‘balls out’.”

The girls’ overall record was 5-19, coming in sixth in their league. Bu instead of dwelling on the results, the team hopes to learn from their mistakes.

“We figured out that we shouldn’t give up right away,” said senior Courtney Murabito. “We had a hard time getting our energy up because we expected to lose, so we didn’t try as hard; that was the problem.”

Throughout the season, the constant losing steak grated on the girls’ morale. But when they were on top of their game, they had some great wins with outstanding performances by the whole team.

Some of the standout players were Murabito and senior Sammi Lotti on offense, junior Alison Buchannan on defense and goalie senior Sara Knysh. In addition, sophomore Alison Knysh and freshman Kate Bolotti both moved up from JV to play for varsity during the season.

Throughout the season, the team has been bonding and creating a stronger camaraderie through team dinners and Friday slurpee trips after practice.

“There are a lot of different kinds of people on the team and it was really good because we all got along really well,” said senior Murabito. “We all have our weird quirks, so we were all pretty crazy together.”

Crase hopes team’s improvements will continue into next year.

“Although we were kind of down in the dumps [this season], a lot of our spirit came from team building and really working well as a team and having fun,” said Crase.